As the threat of Iran‘s nuclear potential is hyped in Tel Aviv and Washington, it is the people in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem who are in real danger. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30704.htm

A shocking video has appeared on the Internet showing Libyan rebels torturing a group of black Africans. People with their hands bound are shown being locked in a zoo-like cage and allegedly forced to eat the old Libyan flag.

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A large map of Libya hangs on the wall in the home of Idris al-Rahel, with a line down the middle dividing the country in half. Al-Rahel, a former army officer, leads a movement to declare semiautonomy in eastern Libya, …

An armed antigovernment mutiny has been crushed in the Syrian city of Homs. More than 100 mercenaries have been seized. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has admitted that supplying arms to Syrian rebels is in no way contributing to a settlement in Syria. The Russian Foreign Ministry has, for its part, urged the United Nations to give a legal assessment to statements by officials from different countries, insisting that the Syrian opposition fighters should continue to be armed.

The battle that has been raging in the southern Syrian city of Homs and that now seems to have been resolved with a ‘win’ for the government, though it would seem at a terrible cost in lives, is now the subject of a follow-up by the MSM; how to care for the survivors, and, what exactly went on in Homs? This is how the BBC reported it: Continue reading this...

Officials of the International Red Cross have arrived in the Baba Amr area of the city of Homs, known to be the worst-damaged during the recent clashes between the Syrian government troops and armed opposition units.

Access to the area has been closed by the authorities for security considerations. The Red Cross humanitarian convoy suspended the evacuation of the wounded from the city on February 26th, when it failed to obtain security guarantees from the warring factions.

But on March 1st, the Syrian authorities, who had regained control over Homs, allowed the Red Cross to supply humanitarian aid to the city and evacuate the wounded. Antigovernment protests have been going on unabated in Syria for almost a year now.

Seventeen states have now introduced bills for state-owned banks, and others are in the works. Hawaii’s innovative state bank bill addresses the foreclosure mess. County-owned banks are being proposed that would tackle the housing crisis by exercising the right of eminent domain on abandoned and foreclosed properties. Arizona has a bill that would do this for homeowners who are current in their payments but underwater, allowing them to refinance at fair market value.

The report, which are part of the firm’s more than five million emails that WikiLeaks revealed this week, show Chávez’s concern over the growing signs of discontent coming from the military. “HCF [Hugo Chávez Frías] is worried,” says one of the …

Hamsher is right on explaining the disparate treatment: Moral of the story: Bradley Manning gets charged with “aiding the enemy” for potentially leaking information that was available on the SIPRNET to hundreds of thousands of people.

The veto Russia slapped jointly with China on two United Nations Security Council resolutions that sought the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad marked the most serious East-West confrontation since the end of the Cold War.